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Cappuccino Insurance is headed over our state’s borders, and we’d like to introduce ourselves to our neighbors in Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, and Washington!

Do you have a second home, a vacation home, rental property, additional vehicle or “toys” (boat, motorcycle, jet-ski’s) in any of these states? Do you own a business in these areas? You can stay insured with Cappuccino Insurance and keep the same level of amazing service and coverage benefits that you’ve enjoyed in California! You may also be entitled to additional package discounts as well.

Who do you know in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada and Washington who would potentially like to increase their coverage benefits and save on their annual premiums? We consider a referral the highest compliment to our agency and as a thank you, we offer a $25 gas card (or Amazon card) to you for each referral who becomes a client. We look forward to showing them the same level of superior coverage and personal service that we strive to show each of you, everyday.

Owning a home in California can raise a lot of insurance concerns: earthquake, fire, and now mudslides. Are mudslides covered on your home insurance policy?

In short, no.

In our last blog, we covered the topic of flood insurance. At the time, rain forecasts were inconclusive, but by now, it is clear that California is having a wet year.

Many areas hit by fires are at risk for mudslides. The number of Montecito homes destroyed by the mudslides were most recently tallied at 115. At the beginning of December residents among the foothills braced for possible mudslides, as well.

It’s not just that these barren areas lack foliage, but during a fire a chemical process occurs which hardens soil, resulting in a loss of topsoil during rains. How much rain does it take to cause a mudslide? According to a recent LA Times article, “In Southern California’s unburned areas, 10 inches of rainfall during the winter is needed to nearly saturate the ground. After that point, a burst of rain of just one-quarter of an inch an hour can trigger widespread shallow landslides. But in areas that experienced a burn, it only takes an intense rainfall.”

Mudslides are NOT covered by home insurance. Yet you can purchase additional flood insurance.

Those in “high risk areas” or Special Hazard Flood Areas will likely already have flood insurance. But you don’t have to live in a traditional high-risk area to be hit by a flood. According to FEMA, “More than 20 percent of flood claims come from properties outside the high risk flood zone.” This is important to note as “floods are the nation’s most common and costly natural disaster and cause millions of dollars in damage every year.”

Flood is one of the exclusions on a home insurance policy. Because there is a 30 day wait period on flood insurance, you can’t wait until there’s an impending storm to up your policy. Last year California had record rains and some people were left high and dry (no pun intended).

Flood Insurance Facts

✅ Flood insurance is a separate, additional policy.

✅ Homes in a high risk flood zone can be as inexpensive as a few hundred dollars. (Those in “high risk” areas likely already have flood insurance as the mortgage lender requires it).

✅ Flood insurance includes building (it will repair the damage) and losses.

✅ Although home insurance will cover some types of flooding, it will not cover water that comes from the outside in, which is bad news for owners with sloping yards, clogged drains, or areas that can pool water.

✅ Flood insurance also covers water back up through drains. (This is important because although some home insurance policies do cover “back ups,” up to $5000, you will not have to file a claim through your home insurance).

Contact Cappuccino Insurance for more information on Flood Insurance and other policies for your home, business, and automobiles.

It’s very common to take to the Internet when you have a negative experience with a business.

But could you be held liable for what you post online?

When one Dallas couple took to social media to fight a business grievance, it ended up costing them 1.08 million in damages.

It all started more than two years ago over a $125 disagreement between the couple and their wedding photographer. According to the lawsuit filed by the photographer, the couple used their social media platforms and the media as a “smear campaign,” to “destroy” her business.

The charges were defamation, disparagement, and civil conspiracy, and on August 2nd, “A Dallas County jury found… that social media posts made by Neely and Andrew Moldovan against photographer Andrea Polito amounted to defamation.”

Yikes.

It’s enough to give us pause about our own online activity, like Yelp reviews and Facebook posts.

A recent analysis on Yelp reviews found that out of the million studied, “12.8 percent were 1-star reviews.” The analysis also revealed that customers “tend to leave reviews based on their own personal feelings about their experience, rather than through an objective analysis.” This could be interpreted to mean that when reviews are based on emotions and subjective experiences rather than hard facts, they’re likely to have inaccuracies.

But can we be held liable for a negative social media post?

It’s very possible.

According to a Slate.com article, “Whether a person makes a defamatory statement on a blog, in a newspaper, or on Twitter or Facebook, he or she can be held legally liable for it.” Furthermore, even “an email sent to a single person can be libelous.”

There is a distinction between slandering a public or private figure. In regards to public figures, “malice” must be proven, but, “In order to be liable for libel against a private figure, a person must have simply been negligent, which means not acting with a reasonable level of care in making the statement in question.”

Even if our own online behavior is squeaky clean and we’re just posting family photos and funny cat videos, we could be held liable for our kid’s online behavior, too.

Your home insurance can include personal injury, and while it’s not standard on most policies, it can be added on and it includes liability. Another option is to have an umbrella policy for this type of liability protection as it covers everything on the under line.

If you have questions about your current policies or you’d like to learn more about adding an umbrella policy to your existing coverage, please contact Cappuccino Insurance.

More homeowners are connecting with sites like Airbnb to rent out a room or their entire house for extra income, but before taking the rental plunge, homeowners need be aware of the risks involved and how their homeowner’s insurance is affected in such enterprises.

Renting on sites like Airbnb can bring potential income but can also come with a whole host of problems. According to one Airbnb host, “There’s one risk that’s even more expensive than vacancy: destruction. If your guest trashes your home, you could (theoretically) lose tens of thousands…”

Horror stories abound, like the story of one Californian women who was left holding the bag for thousands of dollars in legal fees when one guest refused to leave and refused to pay. And according to The New York Times, while Airbnb does come with insurance “for hosts with every stay, the policy has numerous exclusions, and Airbnb requires a host to file a claim within 14 days of a guest’s departure, or before a subsequent guest arrives, whichever is sooner.”

It’s not just damages and potential legal fees that homeowners need to mitigate risks for but liability coverage as well.

Homeowner’s insurance comes with personal liability, which is designated for residential, but by renting the home on Airbnb, the home has become a business. Also a regular home insurance policy won’t cover theft or vandalism caused by renters. Perhaps most poignantly, if the insurer discovers that the home is being rented out on Airbnb or a similar service they may drop the policy and claims might be denied.

To mitigate risks, and not get dropped by their homeowner’s policy, people that are renting their homes out on Airbnb need a special policy: short-term vacation rental insurance. At Cappuccino Insurance, we work with several companies that offer short-term vacation rental insurance. Cost varies by size of home and how much coverage you desire. Please contact us to learn more.

If you or someone on your policy is driving for a Transportation Network Company, like Uber or Lyft, you need to know about gap coverage and transportation network endorsement.

Most insurance companies will not issue a policy for personal insurance coverage when they know that driver works for Uber or Lyft. Upon discovering your employment they can cancel and/or not renew the policy, or even worse, deny a claim.

This could be the first issue you run into if you are thinking about driving or are already a driver for a TNC. Almost all personal auto policies exclude livery.

The second important issue in this industry is the gap period. Uber and Lyft provide insurance coverage while the driver has a passenger in the car. But the period while the driver is waiting on passengers or in between passengers has been a point of contention since an Uber driver struck and killed a pedestrian in San Francisco in 2013. Neither the company nor the insurance providers would take responsibility for the claim.

The whole point of having insurance is so you’re covered.

Now there are several companies whom we work with at Cappuccino Insurance that provide both personal car insurance and who will “endorse your policy” for gap coverage.

If you or family members on your policy are driving for Uber or Lyft, talk to your insurance agent to look over any exclusions on your current policy and learn about the best companies for gap coverage. Cappuccino Insurance is here to answer your questions!